Serbia Strong

2006viral videodeclining

Published September 27, 2026

Serbia Strong, also known as Remove Kebab, is a mid-1990s Bosnian Serb propaganda music video that four soldiers filmed near Knin as a wartime tribute to Radovan Karadžić. After it surfaced on YouTube in the late 2000s, imageboard users turned the accordion-and-trumpet clip into the ironic 'REMOVE X' snowclone template, and it later drew global attention when the Christchurch mosque shooter played the song during his 2019 livestream.

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Overview

The meme fixed on the video's distinct visual and audio elements: a stone-faced singer belting Karadžić's name over a droning accordion and trumpet duet, filmed on grainy VHS at a wartime encampment1. Once English-speaking imageboard users on 4chan and Krautchan latched onto the clip, the song became a soundtrack for edgy nationalist shitposts, and a copypasta popularized the phrase 'Remove Kebab' as an ironic reference to anti-Muslim violence during the Bosnian War3.

The format spawned the 'REMOVE X' snowclone and a wave of character swaps that mimed the original performers. A Team Fortress 2 recreation seeded the 'REMOVE POOTIS' variant, and a widely watched Minecraft version replaced the accordionist with an Enderman3. The joke ran on a mix of Balkan black humor, imageboard irony, and shock value at how bleakly literal the source footage was.

Origin & Background

Platform
Wartime video (1995) / YouTube and Krautchan (viral spread)
Date
2006

Keyboardist Slobodan Vrga said the video was shot near Knin, Croatia, in 1995 by independent producer Nikola Jorgic, while singer Zeljko Grmusa recalled the shoot as taking place in 19933. The four performers were Bosnian Serb Army soldiers: Vrga on keyboard, Grmusa on vocals, Nenad Tintor on trumpet, and Novislav Đajić on accordion. The song was written as a tribute to Radovan Karadžić, the wartime Republika Srpska president who was later convicted of genocide.

Jorgic, the producer, was tried in Germany and sentenced to life for genocide, dying in prison in 20143. Đajić received a five-year German sentence on genocide-related charges. The earliest documented online upload with the original watermark appeared on YouTube on August 3rd, 2008 under the title 'Radovan Karadzic Haag bluz' by Croatian documentary filmmaker Pavle Vranjican, using the handle ARHIVISTA1.

How It Spread

Before ARHIVISTA's watermarked 2008 upload, a segment from the video had already been broadcast on Croatian television and re-uploaded on May 24th, 2006 by YouTuber Momcilo inside a mock 'Best Chetnik Song' contest clip titled 'Dzamije lete'3. That version, taken from Omladinska TV's Eurovision programming, is what put the footage into wider online circulation.

The parody wave took off in 2010. A Krautchan /int/ user known as Sergej posted a 'Tupac Serbia' remix, and on August 25th, 2010, a YouTube edit swapped the singers for Team Fortress 2's Heavy, Scout, and Engineer under the title 'REMOVE POOTIS'2. A Minecraft-themed flash animation uploaded on September 15th, 2011 by user '85552100' pulled more than 1.5 million views within a year and became one of the best-known parodies4.

The song took on a much darker second life on March 15th, 2019, when the gunman who attacked the Al Noor Mosque and Linwood Islamic Centre in Christchurch, New Zealand played 'Remove Kebab' during the Facebook livestream of the shootings, killing 51 people3. In a document circulated before the attack, the shooter described himself as a 'kebab removalist.' Both Vrga and Grmusa publicly condemned the shooter's use of the song. Two days later, YouTube removed the 'Remove Kebab (perfect loop)' video, which had accumulated roughly nine million views5.

How to Use This Meme

The template typically pairs the original melody with a character swap or a 'REMOVE X' caption in the video title, keeping the low-fi look of the source clip. Common conventions include stiff camera pans, mismatched instrument miming, and text overlays styled after the 2008 upload's chyrons.

Frequently Asked Questions